America Against Itself: Moral Vision and the Public Order - Hardcover

Neuhaus, Richard John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0268006334 ISBN 13: 9780268006334

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992

Synopsis

America Against Itself is an in-depth, multi-faceted analysis of the pervasive cultural warfare that threatens to undermine the American social structure.

Partly autobiographical, slightly polemical, and thoroughly challenging, America Against Itself is an in-depth, multi-faceted analysis of the pervasive cultural warfare that threatens to undermine the American social structure. Richard John Neuhaus, author of The Naked Public Square, employs a large measure of social criticism, moral philosophy, and religious reflection in analyzing this contemporary Kulturkampf. He addresses the limits and imperatives of politics as well as religion's role in defining our common culture. Among the subjects tackled are the abortion debate, the urban underclass, and the nature of altruism in a world that rewards uncaring. In addition, Neuhaus reflects on his role in "The Movement" of the 1960s, and how, despite its idealistic intentions, it went so wildly wrong.

America Against Itself is not a prolonged lamentation against the prevailing moral and intellectual decline that seems characteristic of the contemporary era. Instead, Neuhaus presents a careful and sympathetic analysis of why we have turned against the highest ideals of the American experiment, and issues a bracing call to turn anew to the challenging vision of "a new order for the ages."

This book is a disturbing, but ultimately hopeful, testament from one of America's foremost public intellectuals, whose passage through three tumultuous decades proves a valuable qualification for probing the complex issue of conflicting moralities struggling to exist in a representative democracy.

About this title

About the Author

Father Richard John Neuhaus is one of the foremost authorities on religion in the contemporary world and president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York. He is editor-in-chief of First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, and author of, among other books, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus From the Cross and The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America.

From the Back Cover

Partly autobiographical, slightly polemical, and thoroughly challenging, America Against Itself is an in-depth, multifaceted analysis of the pervasive cultural warfare that threatens to undermine the American social structure. Richard John Neuhaus, author of The Naked Public Square, employs a large measure of social criticism, moral philosophy, and religious reflection in analyzing this contemporary Kulturkampf. He addresses the limits and imperatives of politics as well as religion's role in defining our common culture. Among the subjects tackled are the abortion debate, the urban underclass, and the nature of altruism in a world that rewards uncaring. In addition, Neuhaus reflects on his role in "The Movement" of the 1960s, and how, despite its idealistic intentions, it went so wildly wrong. America Against Itself is not a prolonged lamentation against the prevailing moral and intellectual decline that seems characteristic of the contemporary era. Instead, Neuhaus presents a careful and sympathetic analysis of why we have turned against the highest ideals of the American experiment, and issues a bracing call to turn anew to the challenging vision of "a new order for the ages". This book is a disturbing, but ultimately hopeful, testament from one of America's foremost public intellectuals, whose passage through three tumultuous decades proves a valuable qualification for probing the complex issue of conflicting moralities struggling to exist in a representative democracy.

Reviews

An even-tempered (if rather partisan) critique of the American soul as it exhibits itself on the different fronts of our ``culture war.'' Neuhaus (Unsecular America, 1986, etc.) traces the traumas of our social and political life back to their ontological roots and supplies a prognosis that will undoubtedly scandalize as many as it sways. A Catholic priest and scholar who presides over the Institute of Religion and Public Life, Neuhaus has concentrated his sociological efforts for some years now on the intersection between the political and the spiritual in American life. In doing so, he has run counter to prevailing notions of secularism--held only, he maintains, by an elite minority--that would, he says, collapse all religious impulses into an entirely private realm. Neuhaus skips over the more obvious examples of conflict--school prayer, Nativity scenes in public parks, etc.--and attempts in more theoretical terms to show that liberal democracy (in its American incarnation) requires a religious foundation if it is to succeed as a unifying social force. He draws on his experiences with the civil-rights movement to show how a religious vocabulary can be used--as it was by Martin Luther King--to bring together even the most mutually antagonistic groups. One might question Neuhaus's optimism in light of the increasing lack of cohesion in most mainline churches today, and parts of his argument display an inclination toward the sort of ``throne-and-altar'' alliance that has bedeviled European reactionaries for two hundred years--but his analysis of the seeming void around which the ``secular'' consensus is built, and the fragility of the social structures that depend upon that consensus, is challenging, prescient, and ominous. And his chapters on the abortion issue, while hardly impartial, are remarkably free of the usual cant. A trifle glib and overconfident, Neuhaus's tone can irritate. His thesis, however, is original enough to compel attention and forceful enough to provoke thought. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0268006334
• ISBN 13: 9780268006334
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214